


Out of the Depths

by LoveThemFiercely



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A Group of Sea Otters is a Raft, Dolphins & Whales, Dolphins and Whales Are Both Grouped in Pods, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, Guilt, I Kinda Wrote This Accidentally, I didn't even realize, If They'd Just Talk To Each Other, Insomnia, Inspired by Artwork and Discord, Interspecies Foster Parents, M/M, Mer!Ben|Kylo, Mer!Finn, MerMay, Merfolk AU, Past Character Death, Plotworm, Rescue, Sea Otters, Skin Hunger, Sorry If You Knew This Stuff Already, They Really Do Hold Paws, Tied Together With Kelp, Touch-Starved, finnlo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 17:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19010938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveThemFiercely/pseuds/LoveThemFiercely
Summary: After Ben rescues Finn as someone once did for him, they travel the seas together; but Ben feels alone.  There's something he needs, and he doesn't know how to ask for it.  What Ben needs is all Finn wants to know.





	Out of the Depths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jessa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessa/gifts), [QueenOfCarrotFlowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/gifts).



> Inspired by @Jessa's lovely, lovely artwork and a conversation about how it resembled the sea. New! Now with the artwork in question, @Jessa's art is AMAZING, this is the piece that made the story!
> 
>  

Ben had never slept well on his own, pushing himself swimming farther and faster, racing dolphins and circling the huge, ponderous whales while they indulgently tracked him with their gentle, patient eyes.  Since he’d left, he’d only managed to sleep when he was well and truly exhausted, and even then he woke often from the shreds of dreams, aching and longing for _Mama_ , _Raft_ , _Together_.  Nothing that he could have, and so it was farther and faster and longer again, ignoring his body’s pain and its signals.  There was talk. He could hear it. He could hardly have helped it, the deep, plaintive wails of song just on the edge of hearing range and the higher, excitable chitters told him he was being discussed by each and every one of the pods he met as he left them.  

 

It didn’t matter.  There was nothing left to be said.  Mama was gone, and it was his fault.  There was nowhere in all of the Great Waters and their tear-salt that he could get away from that.  He’d gone back to the Raft, for a little while, after. Where else would he have gone? He thought it might help, the familiar place, the comfort of company.  But in each beautiful, sleek, night-eyed face Ben had seen her, Mama, patiently, carefully sawing away at the cruel ropes with claw and tooth while her lungs must have been screaming for air.  When they’d bedded down, the Raft, all together, it had only gotten worse.

 

In each limb stretched toward his own he’d seen hers, falling away to the Deep just as his heart had rejoiced to know he was _out_ , _free, saved_ ; before he’d realized she was gone.  She’d pushed herself beyond her body’s capacity, heedless of the consequences, until his rescue had been assured; and she’d paid with her life.  The sea-waters were _world_ and _life_ and _bounty_ to them all, but for Those Who Take Breath, it wasn’t part of them, not like the Cold Ones, Those Who Wear Gills; and they couldn’t live without sky.   _She_ hadn’t lived to see sky again.  He’d left the Raft, gone out alone, and the scraps and snatches of sleep he caught whenever exhaustion overtook him had had to suffice.

 

That wasn’t how Finn did things, though, not how it must work for regular Folk.  He didn’t _know_ how it should work, that was the trouble.  The Solitary elder, gnarled and scarred, who’d taught him to speak with Folk in return for some of his hunting, had given him no ways to go with the words, no sense of how he should be.  Finn slept like he was part of the earth itself, whether in the shallows or hidden out of the waves, and he got all his sleeping done at once, leaving him bright and shining and beautiful through the rest of his day.  

 

It was hard to explain.  They’d been travelling together for a while now, and it was easy, laughter and companionship and the sharing of tasks that needed doing.  And each night Finn hauled himself onto the sand, hidden behind wave-washed boulders, or tucked himself into a cave or grotto, safe from prying eyes and secure from predators, and he slept, simple and heavy and peaceful.  And Ben...didn’t. He thrashed and rolled and threw fountains of sand and spray from his anxious fins. Eventually, each night, as his fear of disturbing Finn grew, he would return to the water and seek the speed, the long muscle-burning swims, the hard work that would leave him panting and unable to keep his eyes open any longer.  If he was lucky, that would give him a small sun’s-arc before the feeling of space and distance around him was too much to bear and he was awake.

 

He wasn’t sure how things were supposed to be, with SeaFolk together, with family.  How would he know? And Finn seemed to be as solitary as he was, at least for now; he hadn’t mentioned anyone waiting for him, or a home beyond the family he’d lost, and Ben wasn’t about to pry.  All he knew was that when he’d pulled Finn from the net, helped him haltingly swim to freedom, the dolphin-calf caught with him already speeding back to her pod, that the body in his arms had felt _right_ .  The warmth and scent and richness of his skin, the flex and curve of arms linked with his own, the coolness of scales covering hidden strength, even injured, as he helped propel them both away from disaster, had just for an instant begun to dispel the DeepCold that was always leached into Ben’s bones.  Finn felt like Raft, and _someone_ , and _not alone_ , and _Home_.

 

But Finn hadn’t made any move to continue that contact, that closeness, once they’d escaped the danger and his bruises and cuts had healed.  He made no move to leave, either, travelling alongside Ben as though it were a given, a thing that could be taken for granted. Ben _wanted_.  He shivered and shook, hoping Finn didn’t see, and nothing could chase the chill.  So each night Ben would slip between the streams of salt and fight loneliness until he won, or maybe it did.  And he would come back to the sand and stone where Finn lay, so close and tempting and carrying all of the warmth Ben needed, and drop ragged and hungering, chest heaving, with a blood-warm sea falling from his eyes until they were shut.  And each night the Depths kept him from rest, and he was cold.

 

…

 

“Ben?”  They lay on sun-drenched stone, and Ben still felt like Northern ice. The cool was palpable even from the hand’s distance between them.  Finn hoped the hoarded light radiating from the rocks might thaw Ben a little, take the shadows from his eyes and the pinched look from his face.  His bones were too close to the surface, like half-submerged flotsam, and he seemed brittle; driftwood long-dry and ready to snap. He knew he’d give anything to let sunlight pierce through those eyes again, if he only knew _what_ to do.  He’d been drawn, helpless, into the current of Ben’s eyes the moment they’d lighted on his, focus and talisman as Finn had fruitlessly thrashed in the twisted rope-trap of the net.

 

Finn had thought he was doomed, seven different kinds of death closing in on him; would it be drowning, fettered in the crossed and closing lines?  Would he be Taken, to be a curiosity for the Dwellers Above? Would he be the one to leave them all open for hunting, their long secret known? Their whole world shattered, all because he was Solitary and unclaimed.  He could have evaded the whole business, if he’d been cautious; but the dolphin calf’s terrified sounds had drawn him, and he could no more leave the poor little mite than he could fly. He’d lost his knife trying to cut them both a path, the abalone blade slipping from his shaking fingers as he tried, too fast, to slice through the cords.

 

The voice had startled him.  “Hold still.” It was low, like the creak and sway of whalesong, and rusty-gravelly as though it didn’t see much use; but it was beautiful.  And Stars!, so was the rest of him; skin like wave-foam under the moon, somehow delicate-looking over bones like the roots of mountains, muscle smoothly flexing under all that paleness as he sawed away with the shell-shard in one long-fingered hand.  Hair one shade lighter than the starless night of Finn’s own drifted, long strands fluttering around the other man’s face. And those _eyes_ , the first thing he’d seen, the exact shade of sunlight filtering down onto sunken decks and through broken hulls, nameless sorrow lurking in them like those lost, hidden shipwrecks.

 

Finn had no idea whether Ben had meant to stay Solitary, to navigate the world alone; but until he asked, until he said he’d prefer Finn didn’t stay, there was nowhere in the wide waters he’d rather be.  Work shared was lessened, and their talk was light and flowing. Finn talked about his family. He hadn’t, really, since the sickness had taken them, and he’d gone on alone. He’d lacked much opportunity and hadn’t had any inclination. But he found himself smiling as he described them, his sisters and his mother and father and the idiosyncrasies of all those who had made his life rich, and if the salt spray was mixed with warmer drops, that was to be expected; he missed them.

 

Some of the children’s antics, as he told them, made Ben laugh; and then Finn was laughing too, and that was the remembrance, in truth, that they deserved.  Ben told him about his travels; he’d been _everywhere_.  Finn had no idea how he’d managed to see as much as he had, but the stories he told of the wonders he’d seen, the beauty of all the world’s waters, were fascinating to hear.  Periodically he’d stop to hunt for a phrase, seeming not quite sure what to call something; and he was willing, but sparing with talk, as though he might not be able to get more words if his store was emptied.

 

Finn could feel his strength and health return, once his scrapes and welts and aches were gone, ocean’s bounty more than adequate for the two of them, working as well in tandem as they did.  But Ben, Ben stayed gaunt and hollow-eyed, beautiful but balanced on a knife’s-edge of exhaustion. He couldn’t understand it; they’d kept a slow pace and short range, for Finn’s benefit while he recovered from the pain and fear of his near-capture or -drowning death.  They slept long hours on remote, body-warm beaches, soaking in what was left of midday’s burn. And yet each morning seemed a heavier burden to Ben than the day before, eyes rimmed with red and circled with the dark of places sunlight never reached.

 

Clearly it was Finn’s turn to care for Ben, setting a lazy course.  They floated as much as they swam, swaying with the waves. He was diligent in hunting down food for them, learning Ben’s favorites as he went and waving tempting morsels under his nose; but the ribs under that long expanse of skin were still more prominent than Finn liked, the muscle atop them strong, but without any flesh to spare.  The words came fewer and farther between as they went, and Finn would catch Ben watching the horizon, gaze unfocused, knife wavering in a slack grip.

 

Today he’d barely said two words together, hadn’t answered to his name until Finn raised his voice.  As they sunned themselves on the rocks, Finn tried asking whether Ben felt ill, whether they should find a community of the Folk who might be able to help; but Ben only shook his head.  “I’m fine. Everything’s normal, Finn.” A worried line drew itself between his brows. “Did...did you want to find more Folk, so you can have somewhere to live, with people? I can help you find them, and then go.  I’m...used to it, being on my own.” His deepening frown gave the lie to the casual offer.

 

“No, that’s not what I meant!  I mean, I thought about trying to find a new place, after...after I lost my family.  But then I got caught, and you found me, and I...I like travelling with you. You don’t have to be, you know.  Used to it. Being alone.” Finn looked down, resting his hand lightly to sit atop the tension of the water’s surface.  “I...I’ve told you about my family, described them to you, what was wonderful about them, how I lost them. And you’ve told me so much about where you’ve gone and all the things you’ve seen.  But…” He hesitated. “You don’t have to say, if you’d rather not. But _why_ are you used to being on your own?  What happened to your family?”

 

“I…”  Ben blushed, the warmth and sunset hue suffusing his skin, coloring the normal bone-pearl-tusk paleness of him all the way to the beginning of his scales.   “I got...lost. When I was very, very young; too young to be away from my mother. I don’t really remember her. But my Mama, who fed me and kept me alive and taught me how to survive, she was a sea-otter, and I lived with her and her Raft.”  He looked up at Finn, mouth tight, shoulders hunched as though waiting for an insult, a joke, a recrimination; like he was expecting to be told that there was something wrong with him. At the same time his eyes were fierce, and Finn knew that any harsh words about the place where he’d been raised would be met with the fire in his blood, glimpsed in hints under the moonlight of his skin.

 

Good thing Finn had no intention of saying anything of the kind.  He knew exactly how intelligent, friendly, loving and compassionate the great otters were, and there couldn’t have been a better example than the man beside him.  He wondered about Ben’s easy command of language (though now he understood the occasional search for words), his name, how and why he’d left the only home he’d remembered, and a host of a hundred other things.  But those were Ben’s to tell him, in his own time, when he felt ready.

 

Finn smiled, breezy and bright.  “All right. And you’ve been by yourself for a long time, haven’t you?  Ben, you can keep any secrets that you need; but that’s not all you need. I don’t…”  He waved frustrated fists. “Tell me what to _do_ !  We eat, but you don’t get stronger.  We sleep, but you’re more tired every day than the day before.  I call your name and you don’t hear me.” He pointed to the cuts that littered Ben’s knuckles.  “You opened up your hands more than you did those scallops, and you dropped your knife five times, Ben.”  He searched those ship’s-timber and sunbeam eyes, more dim than they should ever be, as though they might provide answers without any help from the mouth below.  “When I was hurting, you told me to tell you what I needed, so you knew how to help. And you don’t have any wounds, or bruises, or fever, but you’re _hurting_ , Ben, I can tell, and I need you to tell me where and how so I can help.   _Please._ ”

 

Finn was still smiling at Ben, at least he hoped he was; but he could feel the saltwater frustration spilling across his lashes.  Ben looked stricken at the sight of his tears as he slipped from the stone back into the shallows surrounding them, as if needing the water to hide.  “I…” He sighed, then took a deep breath, steeling himself for some expected pain. The words came all in a rush, like stripping the poultice from a nearly-healed wound.  “I can’t sleep. Alone. I need...someone near me. I need to be touched, to hold onto someone, to rest. It’s...how we slept, in the raft, together, floating held in place by strands of kelp so we didn’t drift apart, always together, always knowing someone was th...there…”  

 

A sob broke the stream of talk, diluting and drowning the syllables; but Ben kept going.  “I want it to be you! But I don’t, I don’t know if you’d want that, I don’t know how to _be_ , how to act like Folk, and I’ve...sometimes I tried, to be with people, and I’d do something, say something, and it was _unnatural_ , _strange_ , and I couldn’t hear that from you. I haven’t had it, had _home_ , for so long.  So I didn’t sleep, the little bits of sleep I got sometimes in the daylight, whenever I could, if I worked and swam and hunted until I couldn’t be awake any more, because that wasn’t how you slept, how things were supposed to work.  I didn’t think you’d understand.”

 

Ben’s hands were clenched in fists, now, too, his shoulders slumped.  “I tried, I _tried_ to sleep next to you, there on the sand, or drifting in the shallows, but I couldn’t, so when you fell asleep I slipped back to the water and did it all again, the racing and leaping and running the currents, to get just that one more moment’s rest, and it’s...it isn’t working.  And I thought it might be better, if you went to be with other Folk, without me, but I’m selfish and I couldn’t.” His voice was bitter as he scolded himself. “Fool. Greedy. I should have…” He trailed into silence, sounding defeated.

 

The words that came next were whispered.  “I couldn’t make myself let you go. You kept travelling with me and talking with me and sharing the work with me and now _you’re_ home for me and I can’t lose this, lose you.”  He stopped, out of words and breath both, panting like he’d just escaped a feeding frenzy full of sharks, eyes wild and wary and braced for hurt.  Finn almost did himself an injury getting down from the stone where they’d been lying. This was going to be easier than he’d thought. He hadn’t known whether he’d been welcome to one so contained inside himself; but this he could fix.  He drew Ben into his arms like he’d been wanting to do since the moment he’d appeared on the other side of that net.

 

…

 

Ben found himself surrounded by Finn, the feel and sound and scent of him.  “Deeps, Ben, is _that_ what’s been eating you all this time?  You only ever had to ask.” He could feel Finn shake his head, so close his nose was brushing through Ben’s hair. “I’m sorry.  You shouldn’t have even had to ask.” He must be dreaming, except that his dreams were never this good. They were full of murk and the pale glow of things that lured and soft brown fur slipping from his fingers.  In dreaming, he could never get out of the dark and the chill and the feeling that there was nothing alive, that there was no heat for miles but his own.

 

So he couldn’t be dreaming, but still there was someone warming him, encircling him chest and shoulder and arm, and he was called out of the depths into sun-heated shallow sea.  There was pressure and weight at his back and a hand on his. Breath was tickling the cold drop-trails and rivulets that ran from the tangles at the nape of his neck. Scales, gliding, skimmed against his tail, wrapped around him, fins comfortably tangled, anchoring him safely in place until they were side by side atop the waves.

 

“...Finn?”  His eyes were closing.  Ben didn’t want that yet, he wanted to _see_ the hand on his belly, the fingers of the other gently stroking the jut of his collarbone along to his shoulder and down to the rush and pulse of life in his wrist.  He needed it to be true with eyes open. But he was so _tired_ , touch-hunger sated at last, held firmly and sure of his place so he wouldn’t drift.  He abruptly jerked awake again, tail spasming, turning his head to try and make sure this was real.  “Don’t...I need…”

 

“Shhhhh.  I’m not going anywhere.  Sleep. I’ll be here in the morning, in all the mornings.  You can have this. It’s all right. I didn’t know. You don’t ever have to drift on your own again.  If you want to find other Folk, we will, and I’ll help you, teach you. If you don’t, it can be just you and me.  You don’t have to outrun yourself. You can be still. You can be safe. You can rest.” The hand that had been at his shoulder rose to run down his hair, his cheek, with each statement, each declaration of _home._

  
Ben struggled to turn, he needed to _see_ , and it was the work of weathering a mountain to grains to flip himself over, nestling his face into the solidity of Finn, ending up afloat under him.  It was hard to keep his head above water, though, eyes and mouth and thoughts full of grit. He didn’t want to drown, to sink into the dark. Realizing what Ben meant to do, Finn rolled onto his back, one rough hand splayed at the dip of Ben’s spine, keeping him in place.  Ben let the sun-heat still trapped in the shallows rise through them both, into and around the heartbeat next to his, and he slept, tethered and surrounded in the feel of _Raft_ and _found, at last_ and _forever_.

**Author's Note:**

> This wrote itself on my brain, I just did the typing. Or something. I don't do short, so I hope this worked.
> 
> So the name of this story came from a piece of, weirdly, Bible verse and geography trivia that embedded itself in my memory years ago. Statera Trium aside, Bible verses are not normally my thing, but a long time ago I read that Psalm 130's line "Out of the depths have I cried unto you" is the reason that the country of Honduras has its name. "Honduras" in Spanish is "Depths". And I like that turn of phrase. There's your random fact for the day.


End file.
